What's Wrong With Microsoft's Marketing

Here are some examples of why they are not good. This is a commercial made for an experimental product called Songsmith.

I can’t tell if this is an actual commercial or if it was an internal joke, but it is pretty ridiculous.

Here’s another example…

The Microsoft ad campaign in which they filmed lap top buyers looking for a lap top for under $1,000. The problem was that Microsoft was being very inauthentic. CNet reports that Microsoft ad’s ‘average consumer’ is an actress and as the video above alledges, she never even went into the Apple store. One problem is that the ad misleads the viewer to think they are watching real life, when it is pretty evident that the whole thing was staged. If you watch the commercial Lauren says “I guess I’m not cool enough for a Mac”. Is Microsoft saying that the PC is for uncool people?

Update:

After reading a blog post titled What Does the Term Marketing Mean, from The Git, I realized that what I am really talking about here is just one small part of marketing. I probably should have titled this post, Why Microsoft’s Advertising Sucks. Another example of why Microsoft’s advertising sucks:

Ouch.

Here’s a piece by Slate that discusses some of Microsoft’s advertising shortfalls.

3 thoughts on “What's Wrong With Microsoft's Marketing”

not sure why you’re calling the first vid a commercial at all. It’s 4+ minutes long, so I’m not sure what the distribution would be. It reads like some kind of internal proof-of-concept video that leaked.

the second video is too much of an obvious troll. Do we honestly not understand that “Lauren” is an actress, and the final product is an edited video? Odd to equate MS “lying” with “shooting and editing a commercial.” It’s not like it claims to be an objective documentary anywhere…

I do say in the post that I’m not sure that the first video is an actual commercial or a joke.

In the Lauren ad, I think most people would think that Microsoft is implying that they are interviewing a random person that was selected to participate in a “contest”. Would the typical person assume that Microsoft hired an actor to pretend to be participating in a contest. Of course not. I’m not saying they are lying by editing the ad, but they are being misleading and inauthentic.